Post by Arctura on Feb 5, 2014 21:32:00 GMT
This is a Thick of It/In the Loop fanfiction. I felt like writing something, well, not Sherlock, and I love Peter Capaldi. WARNING: this is probably rated T, maybe even M, for the sheer audacity of the characters' language. This is not for the faint of heart (expect a lot of f-bombs, guys).
"WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE"
Malcolm Tucker, the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, saunters into his office. He turns on the radio and begins scribbling furiously about some unimportant matter. Oh, how he hates being the PM's bitch. In the background, he hears the broadcast say, “And of course the big one is diarrhea, which is a major, major issue…”
“Ah, diarrhea. This is- I mean this is the Minister for International Development. He should be talking about food parcels, not fucking arse-spraying mayhem.”
“And so, if we can tackle the easy things , like..diarrhea, then we can…”
“Oh, say it again. Yes, very good.” Flipping some papers, Malcolm mumbles, “What is this, the shitting forecast?”
Sam Cassidy, his secretary, gives him his tea, a light smile on her face.
*******
Malcolm Tucker walks down the asphalt, on his way to the Minister’s office, not bothered about the cars nearby. He is not going to lose this argument. He talks into his phone vehemently, “Okay, okay, go ahead and print ‘unforeseeable. Listen, see when I tell your wife about Angela Heaney at the Blackpool conference, what would be best? An email, a phone call, what? Hey! I could write it on a cake with those little silver balls: 'Your Hack husband betrayed you on October the 4th and congratulations on the new baby.' Yeah, maybe it's better to spike it. Yeah, okay, fuckity bye!” He hangs up, only to be burdened by yet another phone call.
*******
Toby Wright knows, as he walks into into the elevator that things are not going to be smooth. The man that follows him in seems to be the Scottish equivalent of Simon Cowell. Maybe he’s a drunk. In the corner, Toby speaks quietly into his phone, his words overlapped by the unrestrained man. When he thinks that it cannot get worse, the Scot raises his voice immensely, clearly arguing with somebody.
“NO, YOU RELAX! Get me fucking Bryan! If you don’t get me fucking Bryan, I’m going to come over there. I’m going to lock you in a fucking flotation tank and pump it full of sewage until you fucking drown.” Surely, such, ah, language is unethical in the workplace. Right?
*******
“Paris Hilton.” Simon suggests.
Judy asks, “Are you serious?”
“Lily Allen.”
“No, no women.” She answers her cell phone. “Yeah?”
“The Olsen twins.” Judy glares at him. Can he really not think of anybody more suitable?
“Thank you,” she says and hangs up. He looks at her expectantly. Judy whispers, “Malcolm. He’s coming to see you.”
“Shit. He’s still alive. When’s he due?” I’m so screwed.
Just then, Malcolm strides in. How he manages to be self-aggrandizing without a single word remains a mystery to all. “Now, don’t you say you weren’t prepared, because I rang ahead.” He turns to face a worried Judy and says civilly, “Give us a minute, could you please, love?”
Sighing, she gets up and leaves.
Once she’s gone, Malcolm says loudly, “In the words of the late, great Nat King fucking Cole, ‘unforeseeable, that’s what you are’.”
*******
Back in the main office, Toby walks around when he overhears a woman saying, “Who’s that geezer? Oh, I know who that is.” It’s Judy. She turns around, and seeing Toby, asks, “You Dan, right? Daniel, new advisor?”
He frowns and shakes his head no. “Toby”, he corrects.
“Toby?”
He confirms, “Yes.”
“Oh, sorry about that Dan thing. It’s just new guys are often called Dan.”
“Yeah, well...” Toby says, unsure.
“I’m Judy Molloy. I’m Director of Communications.”
Toby felt he needed to inquire. “Is this a normal morning, here or-?” He was referencing the earlier incident in the elevator with the Scottish Simon Cowell.
But Judy cut across him. “The Minister was rubbish on last night’s interview, so-”
“He was..rubbish?”
“Yes. Rubbish.”
Toby had heard the broadcast, but he simply didn’t understand what was wrong with it. The political world was foreign to him. That and he had never had a job before. Straight from Cambridge, he is.
*******
“C’mon, Malcolm, he asked me for- for a personal opinion.” Only Malcolm could make him, Simon Foster, Minister of International Development, stutter and second guess his actions.
“But why didn’t you say it? I mean he asked you..fucking of course...that explains it. If he’d asked you to fucking black up, or to give him your pin number, or to-to shit yourself, would you have done it?” He was building up into his infamous Malcolm Tucker rant.
“I would have blacked up, because it was radio. Nobody would have known.”
“Very good, yeah.” Malcolm said sarcastically.
Simon attempts to justify. “War is basically unforeseeable, isn’t it?”
“That is not your line. Work the fucking line. Look, we’ve got Cannon Clark over from Washington today.”
“Okay.” Simon says, slowly.
“We’ve got enough Pentagon goons here, staging a fucking coup d'état.” I swear to god, if the minister doesn’t get his shit together, this is all going to blow up in our fucking faces. Starting a war with Iraq is the last thing we need.
Judy strolls in with Toby following behind. “Minister-”
“Not the time, love”, Malcolm interrupts her in his falsely sweet voice. His patience was waning. “I’m busy, fuck off.”
Undeterred, Judy introduces the new employee, “This is Toby.”
Before Malcolm can say anything, Simon quickly greets him, shaking his hand and saying, “Toby, hi, glad you could make it. Bit of a hard morning here. Welcome to the madhouse. I apologize for Malcolm-”
That was the last straw. Malcolm was positively livid. “Don’t apologize for me. Apologize for yourself.” He turns to Judy, addressing her, “Did I not just tell you to fuck off and yet you’re still here?” What part of that does she not understand? Good lord, the English are thick...
Resignedly, she answers, “Yes, it’s true. I am still here.”
Malcolm points at Toby. “Hey, foetus boy, lesson one: I tell you to fuck off- what do you do?”
“Uh, eff off?”
“You’ll go far. Now, fuck off.” With that, Toby quietly shuffles out of the room. He hadn’t expected to last this far.
Things are getting out of hand. And this is my bloody office. Simon speaks up, “Judy and I were thinking I could row back on question time tonight.”
“You’re not going on question time tonight. You’ve been disinvited.” Malcolm says, low, menacing, daring him to challenge his word.
Simon protests, “We’ve been prepping question time!”
“Why wasn’t I told about this?” Judy says uncomprehendingly. Why the hell wouldn’t I know about the ongoings of the Minister?
Malcolm bit back a laugh. He replies, “Why the fuck would I tell you about it? I’ve told you to fuck off twice and yet you’re still here.”
“You should tell me about it, because it’s a scheduled media appearance by this department’s Secretary of State, so therefore it falls well within my purview.” Judy is determined to put Malcolm in his place. I will be damned if I let him intimidate me.
“In your purview?”
She replies brusquely, “Yes.”
“Where do you think you are? In some regency costume drama? This is a government department- not a fucking Jane fucking Austen novel.”
Hoping to placate him, Simon interjects, “Malcolm.” Oh, there’s no use. Once he starts, there’s no stopping until everyone is properly made a fool of.
“Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter.”
“Your swearing does not impress me. My-my husband works for Tower Hamlets, and believe me, those kids make you sound like..Angela Lansbury!” Judy says with finality, stalking out of the room.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Malcolm mutters, “She’s married? Poor bastard.”
Simon, at this point, was beyond exasperated. “Malcolm, “ he repeats, “Judy aside, for a second, are you saying I am no longer allowed to make media appearances?”
Malcolm clarifies, “Correct. Not until we can trust you to keep the line.”
“Look, I was going to say I don’t think war is unforeseeable.”
“What is it, then?”
“I dunno. Foreseeable?” Seeing his mistake, he amends, “No..”
“NO!”
“No.” Simon agrees, still not understanding.
“Not foreseeable. That’s fucking declarin’ war! Do you wanna fuckin’ declare war?” Malcolm yells, his accent more pronounced. He is in full berserker mode now.
“I’m a Cabinet Minister. I didn’t get here by screwing up every media appearance I ever had.” It’s Simon’s attempt at salvaging his dignity.
Surprisingly, Malcolm calms down at this. There needs to be a solution. “Write this down. It’s neither foreseeable nor unforeseeable.” That ought to feed the masses.
“Right. So not inevitable but not...”
“You’d better work on this fucking line.” Malcolm says before leaving the office, ready to hunt down his next victim.
“...evitable.” Simon finishes. Clearly, there is work to be done.
*******
“You, hey!” He says, approaching Judy, “Put this snifter out there. if the BBC ambushes the Minister with another surprise question about the war, I’ll drop a bomb on them.” Anyone who knows Malcolm, knows that it is not an empty threat.
As if speaking to a small child, Judy explains, “Well, I can’t do that, can I? That’s political-”
Remind me to never marry. “Oh, is that not- does that not fit within your purview, Marie Antoinette? Listen, why don’t you just scuttle back to fucking Cranford and play around with your tea and your cakes.” Malcolm says, caustically, and then pivots, pointing to Toby, who sits feebly at his desk. “Hey, you, Ron Weasley. You do it.”
Toby nods. At least I’m not fired. And I’ve got something to do. Welcome, Toby, welcome to the madhouse.
*******
The three leave the office and Simon says, “I really, really hope there isn’t a war. It’d be nightmare. It’s bad enough having to cope with the fucking Olympics.” Predictably, the press bombards them with a discord of “Minister!” and “Do you have a moment?". Judy suggests that she go over the lines with the minister but to no avail. He is already walking up and opening his mouth, no doubt about to say something incredibly half-arsed. It is not that his articulation is poor- he is foreign-relations minister; but, he’s abysmal when under pressure. And this is one of those moments.
“Is war unforeseeable?” a journalist asks.
"Look, uh, all sorts of things that are actually very likely are also unforeseeable," he replies, waveringly. "For the plane in the fog, the mountain is un-unforeseeable, but then it is suddenly very real and inevitable."
“Is this your opinion or is it the government’s position?”
"The mountain in the metaphor is a completely hypothetical mountain that could represent anything," the minister says.
"Who's the plane and who's the mountain?" the press corps wants to know.
I’m going to make this very clear for you bloody parasites. “What I’m saying is that to walk the road of peace, sometimes we need to be ready to climb the mountain of conflict.” Even before the sentence is out, Simon knows he screwed up. Majorly. He blames it on Judy.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Why didn’t we nail the line?” he whines once they’re in the car.
Judy says, a bit irate, “Simon, I did try to warn you...”
“Yes, you tried to warn me, but you didn’t actually stop me, did you...”
“Well, I can’t tackle you to the ground.” she argues.
Dammit Judy, you’re supposed to be my PR. He shoots back, “...by shouting ‘Train!' at somebody as they get hit by a train. You should go 'TRAIN! THERE'S A FUCKING TRAIN!'-"
His rant is cut off by his phone ringing. And Judy’s.
“Fuck, it’s Malcolm.”
“It’s Malcolm for me, too.”
“How does he do that?” Simon wonders aloud. I knew it. He’s not from Earth. Is that enough for deportation?
The pair can hear Malcolm’s sharp voice. “Simon, I don’t like finding out about people employed by this government violent news unless they’ve just died. Be here. Now.” They know that steady voice well.
It’s the calm before the storm. The one where he blows up in everybody’s fucking faces.
*******
They are at Malcolm’s place, and Toby walks alongside the anxious minister, suggesting, “Maybe we should get it out there- float the idea that the war is a resigning issue for you.”
“Who says resigning issue? Then you’d have to resign.”
Grinning, Judy turns back and tells Toby, “You’re having a really great first day, you know that?”
It’s true. It’s Toby’s first day on the job, and he has already been told to fuck off and numerous other things. Normally, Malcolm gives newbies at least a day or two before ridiculing them in every way imaginable. Perhaps it was just an abnormally hard morning at DoSAC.
As they enter his office, Malcolm commences the storm, diminishing any hope of constructive adult conversation. “You’re supposed to be a Cabinet minister! You are supposed to be Officer Class! Don’t do this. Don’t make fucking waves.”
Simon’s not impressed. It is a daily struggle with Malcolm. “We can do without the ritual humiliation. You know I’m against talking about the war.”
“You’re against talking about the war? Is that why you said ‘climb the mountain of conflict’? You know what you sounded like? You sounded like a fucking Nazi Julie Andrews.”
